Chapter 470: A Desperate Gamble
This sudden turn of events left everyone at a loss. She could have easily killed them all with that ball, yet she deliberately slammed it hard onto the ground.
Could it be that Di Ma was tired too?
"What a pity..." Di Ma said. "I should have made all the mechanisms throw this ball together with me. That way, your chances of survival would have been drastically reduced... But now..."
Qiao Jiajin picked up his bat and looked at the black liquid on its tip, feeling a sense of foreboding.
When he had shattered one of the balls earlier, a large amount of black liquid had splashed onto his bat and clothes.
It seemed to be some kind of oil.
Looking at the ground in the distance, everyone's bodies were stained with more or less of this black oil.
Those two tiny black balls had actually released an enormous amount of strange liquid.
Di Ma reached into her bamboo tube again. Only one ball remained inside.
"Now it's just me throwing the ball..." Di Ma gritted her teeth. "I have to say, your strange move has greatly reduced your chances of death and forced me to change my tactics. Those two balls should have killed you outright, but I thought of a more interesting way to play."
Qiao Jiajin wiped his bat, finding the black oil incredibly sticky. Rubbing it with his left hand smeared it onto his left hand; rubbing it with his right hand smeared it onto his right. There was no way to get rid of it.
He quickly looked up to deal with Di Ma first, since she still had one last attack left.
Under everyone's watchful eyes, Di Ma slowly pulled out a rough iron ball.
This would be her final attack—and also her most powerful one.
Even Qiao Jiajin, slow as he was, felt a sense of dread at the sight of that iron ball.
His long experience in street brawls told him that if he dared to block this iron ball with a metal bat, not to mention the devastating damage it would do to his body, the current arena was covered in oil. Just the sparks from metal striking metal would be enough to kill them all.
So, should he block the ball or not?
Qi Xia immediately understood Qiao Jiajin's concern and spoke up from a short distance away: "Fist, you already know the way to victory. Don't hesitate."
Qiao Jiajin glanced at Qi Xia, thought for a couple of seconds, then turned to the people pushing the cart and said, "Brothers, the moment that broad throws the ball, you shove the cart across the finish line with all your might."
"Can we make it, Brother Qiao?"
"I'm not sure," Qiao Jiajin said. "After this throw, either we all die together, or we all live together."
Though Qiao Jiajin's brief words didn't bring any good news, the others still felt a bit more secure.
Qi Xia also nodded slowly. From his perspective, Qiao Jiajin had already obtained "Echo," so this game against Di Ma wasn't a loss. In the worst-case scenario, even if Qiao Jiajin died here, it wouldn't be a bad thing.
And for some reason, "Breaker of All Laws" had inadvertently destroyed all the game props in Di Ma's arena. Looking at it that way... did Di Ma have any way out?
Regardless of whether this iron ball could be blocked, victory was already sealed.
When Di Ma calmed down and thought about it, wouldn't she feel that even the "Divine Beast" wouldn't care?
If someone who broke the rules was forgiven, the domination of the "Divine Beasts" would weaken. The balance between the various "Zodiacs" and "Participants" in the "Land of Endings" was so delicate that once a crack appeared, it would inevitably lead to severe and unmanageable consequences. So Di Ma had to die.
Over twenty years of experience as a "Zodiac," only to die a pointless death—no one would willingly accept that outcome.
The people in the straight track grabbed the cart and turned back, staring fixedly at Di Ma's movements together with Qiao Jiajin.
If they could just slightly interfere with the trajectory of the iron ball this time, they would win this treacherous game.
Qiao Jiajin slowly raised his metal bat to his ear. Thinking from Di Ma's perspective, none of her attacks had ended the game so far. To win this round, she would definitely aim at the person riding the cart.
"It's just a baseball game," Qiao Jiajin said. "Hit it and we win; miss it and we die."
He gripped the now-dented bat with both hands, took a few deep breaths to calm his mind, and stared intently at Di Ma's shoulders and arms.
"Everyone..." Qi Xia turned to the people beside him. "Get ready to put out the fire."
Upon hearing this, they immediately took off their leather jackets and held them in their hands, staring at the changes on the field. Meanwhile, Qi Xia slowly walked to the wall and picked up a ball from the ground.
Under everyone's gaze, Di Ma took a step back, calculated the direction, and violently threw the iron ball in her hand.
At the same moment, Qiao Jiajin swung his bat.
Both of them used all their strength, throwing their arms toward each other.
The sound of wind cutting through the air reached their ears. A black line streaked through the sky, and Qiao Jiajin swung fiercely at it.
*Ding!!*
A crisp sound rang out in the air, followed by the cracking of bones in Qiao Jiajin's arms, and then the sound of the metal bat breaking.
Countless sparks exploded in the air like the Big Bang.
At the same time, the people pushing the cart mustered all their strength and shoved the "Wooden Ox and Flowing Horse" forward.
The iron ball, slightly deflected by Qiao Jiajin's bat, flew toward Chou Ershi on the cart. Fortunately, its landing point was a bit off, missing him by about ten centimeters and flying past with a violent gust of wind into the distance.
Next came the raging fire everywhere.
The first thing to catch fire was Qiao Jiajin's bat, then his arms and his whole body, followed by the ice on the track and the leather jackets on everyone else.
Before they could even leave the track, they were instantly engulfed in flames.
The "Cat" team members, who were standing by, were sweating profusely. Seeing Chou Ershi and the cart fly off the track, they rushed over with their leather jackets, covering the burning parts of several people's bodies and legs. The fire was mostly brought under control.
Qiao Jiajin threw away the bat and quickly rolled on the ground, but the flames from the sticky black oil couldn't be easily extinguished by rolling. Just as he was in despair, Qi Xia ran over with the mud balls that had fallen to the ground from the previous rounds—now harmless—and smeared them on Qiao Jiajin's burning areas.
Though everyone was screaming in pain, everything happened within ten seconds.
Thanks to the excellent coordination and quick action of the "Cat" team, this "fire attack" orchestrated by Di Ma herself was brought to an end before it could spread.
Now, only the sound of heavy breathing echoed through the smoke-filled arena.
Even Qi Xia was somewhat amazed by the difficulty of this game.
If the previous games had been made harder because of his own interference, then who had interfered with this one?
Based on Di Ma's own skill level... could she have pulled off something like this?
To survive this game with a hundred percent certainty required not only physical strength, combat skill, and intelligence, but also knowledge of the "Wooden Ox and Flowing Horse" story, familiarity with the "Big Dipper," and the ability to confront a "Earth-level" head-on in the final round.
"The mastermind behind this game is no ordinary person..." Qi Xia knew that Di Ma couldn't possibly be the designer of this game, but he also knew that his memories of the "Zodiacs" were all gone.
For now, he could only hope that the mastermind was no longer a "Zodiac." Otherwise, facing such a strategist, even he had no sure way to win.